02 Mar 2021

Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration, Mr Kabo Morwaeng has requested Parliament to approve over P1.5 billion and P622 million for recurrent and development budget respectively for 2021/22 financial year.

Presenting the budget proposals on Monday, the minister said the recurrent budget had been reduced by P61 million or 3.76 per cent over the 2020/21 budget allocation due to challenges in government revenue.

He said the COVID-19 pandemic affected his ministry’s recurrent budget as from the allocated P1.6 billion P171 million was withdrawn to address the challenge.

The development budget, however, has been increased by 6.8 per cent and P620 million  will be spent on ministerial consultancy fees.

He said the Ethics Integrity Directorate established following the implementation of the Declaration of Assets and Liabilities was operational and had  started to accept declarations.

The minister further said the Act would be amended during the current sitting of Parliament and added that he would table a Bill to establish a committee to asses remuneration and allowances for MPs, councillors, Members of Ntlo ya Dikgosi and other specified officers.

Mr Morwaeng said the National Assemblies Salaries and Allowances Act was amended in 2020 to incorporate car allowance at 10 per cent of basic salary for MPs who were not provided with official vehicles.

He further said his ministry was at an advanced stage to set up a Data Information Protection Commission in line with Data Protection Act of 2018. The minister explained that the Acts provided the protection of personal data to safeguard people’s rights to privacy.

He said government was developing a National Transformation Strategy to operationalise Vision 2036.

He said the strategy would provide a framework for a coordinated and aligned central strategies in the public and private sectors at local and national levels.

The minister further said the country continued to strengthen performance through the National Monitoring and Evaluation System.

He further said the performance reporting system was reviewed in accordance with the performance based approach.

The minister said the annual performance report would be supported by thematic working groups and ministerial performance review reports.

Mr Morwaeng said government was concerned about the increasing wage bill, which stood at 48.27 of the recurrent budget in 2019/20, increased to 54.24 per cent in 2020/21 and projected to increase by 1.48 per cent in the next financial year.

Therefore, he said that government was developing a Workforce Plan for the public service, adding that 50 per cent of vacant posts would be eliminated effective April 1 in an effort to reduce the wage bill.

The minister said the total manpower requirements submitted by ministries, departments and agencies for the 2021/22 financial year stood at 7 651 positions valued at over P1  million. With regards to fighting corruption, the minister said the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime was in the process of developing and introducing strategies to fight corruption through promotion of good governance and best practices.

He said the corruption busting agency had introduced and implemented several strategies such as corruption audits, corruption risk assessments and management policies as well as  action plans in public institutions.

The minister said during the 2020/21 financial year, institutions were incapacitated to effectively implement recommended anti-corruption measures and quality management system for Botswana Bureau of Standards certification to improve customer satisfaction funded by United Nations Development

Programme, which offered technical sponsorship for developing the monitoring and evaluation system.

In an effort to eradicate poverty, Minister Morwaeng said 38 971 projects had been funded since the beginning of the Poverty Eradication Project and as at December last year, over 34 000 people had been employed in the 31 000 currently running projects across the country. ENDS